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But my guess is that this ideal hasn't gone anywhere. I thought of it again when, during last week's OTAs, I saw the team scrimmaging 1s-vs.-1s more frequently -- They're ramping up.

You try not to overreact to things you see at these practices. Still, it's important to remember that this camp is important in the eyes of the Patriots' staff, and there's no greater evidence of that than Meyer's reaction to what he saw five Junes ago.

That, in fact, led to so many discussions between Meyer and Belichick to come.

"We rarely talk about scheme, but we talk about fundamentals all the time," Meyer said. "I watched him in practice, watched the way he coaches. And I don’t know that we’ve taken a lot of scheme from him, but we’ve taken fundamentals. We’ve taken some of his drills, which I couldn’t write down fast enough, because it’s all fundamentals.

"And I think the Espirit De Corps. He’s built that team like this now. When you see Vrabel running down 50 yards on a June 16 day, last day of minicamp, and he’s a scout kickoff guy, that’s the way I want my team to be."

So in addition to being on Welker Watch, we'll keep an eye on these kinds of little things over the next couple days.